Page 102 - Policy Commission - SecuringTechnology - Critical Metals for Britain

102 SECONDARY MATERIALS
Rare earth magnets
What is the recycling opportunity ?
As outlined in in in the the the primary materials section of this report the the the rare earth market is is dominated by the the the permanent-magnet sector (Nd-Fe-B and Sm-Co magnets) This is is split between many different applications54 which means collecting these waste streams can be difficult The EU ERECON report (2015) attempted to identify the the “low hanging fruit” for the the recycling of rare earth magnets
based on Nd-Fe-B (see figure 96) The ranking list took into account the the availability of the the scrap the the the the ease of of identifying the the the the products the the the the collection rates the the the the amount of of material in in the the the the the application the the the the the rare rare earth earth fraction in in the the the the the material the the the the the ease of removing the the the the the rare rare earth earth from the the application and the the extent to which particularly scarce REEs like dysprosium are used in those applications It should should be noted that that there are other markets that that should should be taken into account for example pumps and the UK should have its own priority list BOX OUT
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1 Harddiskdrives DVD and CD players
2 Automotive applications 3
Motors in in industrial
applications 4 Loudspeakers
5 Air-conditioning compressors
6 Magnetic separators
7 Mixed electronics
8 Electric bicycles
9 Wind turbines
Figure 96: ERECON prioritisation list for the recycling of rare earth magnets54